DESIGN ACT Socially and politically engaged design today ï¿½ critical roles and emerging tactics is a new book that presents and discusses contemporary design practices that engage with political and societal issues. Since 2009, Iaspisï¿½ and Interactive Instituteï¿½s collaboration DESIGN ACT has been highlighting and discussing practices, in which designers have been engaging critically as well as practically in such issues. Itself an example of applied critical thinking and experimental tactics, the process behind the DESIGN ACT project is considered as a curatorial, participatory and open-ended activity. DESIGN ACT has developed through a website with an online archive; public seminars; presentations and an international network of practitioners, theoreticians and curators.The book is organized around three sections:

ï¿½WHAT are examples of these movements?ï¿½ Contemporary and historical writings, including reprints of ï¿½Suicidal Desiresï¿½ (from the book Superstudio: Life Without Objects, by Peter Lang and William Menking) and ï¿½Designer as Authorï¿½ (from the book Design Noir by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby), historical reflections by Helena Mattsson and Christina Zetterlund and an interview with Doina Petrescu (FR) by Ramia Mazé.

ï¿½HOW does it happen and what does it take?ï¿½ A substantial analysis of the tactics and methods of the examples of projects featured in the DESIGN ACT archive, by Ramia Mazé and Natasha Marie Llorens.